Stage set for critical debate as candidates battle for Ohio

By DAVID LAUTER

Tribune Washington Bureau |

Wire Service

With the second of three presidential debates set for tonight, Mitt Romney has redoubled his efforts to win the campaign’s most critical battleground, trying to overcome President Obama’s months-long lead in Ohio.

Ohio has been on the winning side of every presidential election since 1964, largely for the same reason that consumer-products companies like to use the state as a test market — it closely resembles the nation in miniature. But the resemblance is not perfect; the state has leaned just slightly more Republican than the country as a whole, meaning that a GOP nominee who cannot carry Ohio is unlikely to win nationwide. None ever has.

As recently as two weeks ago, with polls consistently showing a strong Obama lead in Ohio, demoralized Republicans openly talked of long-shot strategies to amass a majority of electoral votes without Ohio’s 18.

Now, with Romney riding a wave of enthusiasm since the first presidential debate and the national polls in a dead heat, that talk is gone. He has made a sudden infusion of cash and a major investment of time, intensifying the fight and directly testing the two campaigns’ core strategies.

Tonight’s town-hall-style debate has the potential to extend his momentum in Ohio and finally break the race’s stubborn tie nationwide as it roars into its final, decisive three weeks.

The 90-minute debate at Hofstra University, which begins at 9 p.m., comes with the two men neck and neck after Romney bested Obama in their first debate, gained in the polls and climbed back into contention.

Obama, sharply criticized for a listless performance in the first presidential debate on Oct. 3, is expected to more aggressively question Romney’s shifts in tone and position over the years — and in some cases recent days — on tax cuts, immigration, abortion and other subjects.

Obama, who has been practicing in Williamsburg, Va., is expected to press Romney hard on the Republican’s contention that he can cut current income tax rates 20 percent across the board without increasing the federal deficit.

Romney, who has been preparing in the Boston area, is expected to counter not only with a ¬vigorous defense of his plan but with a recitation of economic woes that he says the Obama administration has helped exacerbate.

The debate could mark a turn in the Ohio battle specifically. After a summer-long advertising barrage by Obama meant to set the agenda for the campaign, Romney’s strategists were seeking an event that would cause people to give Romney a second look.

For voters like Molly Johnson, the Oct. 3 debate provided that moment.

“The debate was huge for me,” said Johnson, of Blue Ash, a Republican-leaning suburb north of Cincinnati.

“Smaller government is a big thing for me,” she said, “but I do have concerns about whether Romney is too much supporting big business to keep the rich, rich.”

In the debate, “I understood Romney,” she said, and she now leans toward him, although “I wouldn’t say 100 percent.”

The Obama advertising strategy in Ohio was meant to hold the line against any late-developing Romney surge.

Democratic strategists believed that in a state with a long history of manufacturing, Obama’s bailout of the automobile industry in 2009 and Romney’s opposition to it would give the president a strong opening argument with the white, blue-collar workers who make up Ohio’s swing vote. They hoped to build on the success of a union-backed campaign last year that overturned a new state law restricting collective bargaining by public employees, including police and firefighters.

Interviews with voters show that the campaign’s aggressive efforts to portray Romney as a wealthy businessman out of touch with the lives of ordinary voters has succeeded in sowing doubts even in the minds of some Republican-leaning Ohioans.

But Romney’s strategists argued all along that in Ohio, as elsewhere, voter unhappiness with the direction of the country would keep Obama vulnerable.

But now the Republicans have moved quickly to try to solidify voters who liked Romney’s performance in the first debate. Romney has spent at least part of each of the past five days in Ohio, drawing crowds of unaccustomed size and enthusiasm, if still smaller than Obama’s. Wednesday, some 9,500 supporters waited for hours on a bone-chilling evening in Sidney, in the state’s rural west, to cheer Romney on.

“I’m overwhelmed by the number of people here,” the Republican told them. “There are even people out there,” he said, pointing into the distance. “That’s another county over there.”

At the same time, Romney’s campaign and allied “super PACs” have begun pouring money into Ohio’s already-saturated airwaves. Four Ohio media markets were among the nation’s top 15 for political ads in September; Obama had the advantage in each one, according to data analyzed by the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks campaign advertising.

This past week, Romney and his allies drew even. Sources familiar with the ad buys said the Republican campaign doubled its purchases of time going into this weekend, and Democrats expect to be significantly outpaced in coming days.

That’s bad news for the state’s beleaguered voters. In addition to the constant ads, “every other phone call during the day is politics,” sighed Julie Ruskin, an Obama supporter from Symmes Township, another northern Cincinnati suburb.

The ads on both sides mix general campaign themes — jobs and the economy, Medicaid, taxes — with state-specific appeals.

To counter the expected Republican advantage on the air, Obama will rely on his formidable get-out-the-vote operation, based in 120 offices in every part of the state. Already, just over a week into early voting here, that has begun paying off.

The early vote so far comes to nearly a fifth of the likely turnout, election officials estimate, and so far has been disproportionately from areas that went for Obama in 2008. (An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Thursday showed that 18 percent of likely voters said they already had cast ballots and 63 percent supported Obama.)

Stage set for critical debate as candidates battle for Ohio

With the second of three presidential debates set for tonight, Mitt Romney has redoubled his efforts to win the campaign’s most critical battleground, trying to overcome President Obama’s months-long lead in Ohio.

Ohio has been on the winning side of every presidential election since 1964, largely for the same reason that consumer-products companies like to use the state as a test market — it closely resembles the nation in miniature. But the resemblance is not perfect; the state has leaned just slightly more Republican than the country as a whole, meaning that a GOP nominee who cannot carry Ohio is unlikely to win nationwide. None ever has.

As recently as two weeks ago, with polls consistently showing a strong Obama lead in Ohio, demoralized Republicans openly talked of long-shot strategies to amass a majority of electoral votes without Ohio’s 18.

Now, with Romney riding a wave of enthusiasm since the first presidential debate and the national polls in a dead heat, that talk is gone. He has made a sudden infusion of cash and a major investment of time, intensifying the fight and directly testing the two campaigns’ core strategies.

Tonight’s town-hall-style debate has the potential to extend his momentum in Ohio and finally break the race’s stubborn tie nationwide as it roars into its final, decisive three weeks.

The 90-minute debate at Hofstra University, which begins at 9 p.m., comes with the two men neck and neck after Romney bested Obama in their first debate, gained in the polls and climbed back into contention.

Obama, sharply criticized for a listless performance in the first presidential debate on Oct. 3, is expected to more aggressively question Romney’s shifts in tone and position over the years — and in some cases recent days — on tax cuts, immigration, abortion and other subjects.

Obama, who has been practicing in Williamsburg, Va., is expected to press Romney hard on the Republican’s contention that he can cut current income tax rates 20 percent across the board without increasing the federal deficit.

Romney, who has been preparing in the Boston area, is expected to counter not only with a ¬vigorous defense of his plan but with a recitation of economic woes that he says the Obama administration has helped exacerbate.

The debate could mark a turn in the Ohio battle specifically. After a summer-long advertising barrage by Obama meant to set the agenda for the campaign, Romney’s strategists were seeking an event that would cause people to give Romney a second look.

For voters like Molly Johnson, the Oct. 3 debate provided that moment.

“The debate was huge for me,” said Johnson, of Blue Ash, a Republican-leaning suburb north of Cincinnati.

“Smaller government is a big thing for me,” she said, “but I do have concerns about whether Romney is too much supporting big business to keep the rich, rich.”

In the debate, “I understood Romney,” she said, and she now leans toward him, although “I wouldn’t say 100 percent.”

The Obama advertising strategy in Ohio was meant to hold the line against any late-developing Romney surge.

Democratic strategists believed that in a state with a long history of manufacturing, Obama’s bailout of the automobile industry in 2009 and Romney’s opposition to it would give the president a strong opening argument with the white, blue-collar workers who make up Ohio’s swing vote. They hoped to build on the success of a union-backed campaign last year that overturned a new state law restricting collective bargaining by public employees, including police and firefighters.

Interviews with voters show that the campaign’s aggressive efforts to portray Romney as a wealthy businessman out of touch with the lives of ordinary voters has succeeded in sowing doubts even in the minds of some Republican-leaning Ohioans.

But Romney’s strategists argued all along that in Ohio, as elsewhere, voter unhappiness with the direction of the country would keep Obama vulnerable.

But now the Republicans have moved quickly to try to solidify voters who liked Romney’s performance in the first debate. Romney has spent at least part of each of the past five days in Ohio, drawing crowds of unaccustomed size and enthusiasm, if still smaller than Obama’s. Wednesday, some 9,500 supporters waited for hours on a bone-chilling evening in Sidney, in the state’s rural west, to cheer Romney on.

“I’m overwhelmed by the number of people here,” the Republican told them. “There are even people out there,” he said, pointing into the distance. “That’s another county over there.”

At the same time, Romney’s campaign and allied “super PACs” have begun pouring money into Ohio’s already-saturated airwaves. Four Ohio media markets were among the nation’s top 15 for political ads in September; Obama had the advantage in each one, according to data analyzed by the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks campaign advertising.

This past week, Romney and his allies drew even. Sources familiar with the ad buys said the Republican campaign doubled its purchases of time going into this weekend, and Democrats expect to be significantly outpaced in coming days.

That’s bad news for the state’s beleaguered voters. In addition to the constant ads, “every other phone call during the day is politics,” sighed Julie Ruskin, an Obama supporter from Symmes Township, another northern Cincinnati suburb.

The ads on both sides mix general campaign themes — jobs and the economy, Medicaid, taxes — with state-specific appeals.

To counter the expected Republican advantage on the air, Obama will rely on his formidable get-out-the-vote operation, based in 120 offices in every part of the state. Already, just over a week into early voting here, that has begun paying off.

The early vote so far comes to nearly a fifth of the likely turnout, election officials estimate, and so far has been disproportionately from areas that went for Obama in 2008. (An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Thursday showed that 18 percent of likely voters said they already had cast ballots and 63 percent supported Obama.)